Editorial note: I received a copy of The Three Lives of Cate Kay in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.
The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan is a fairly entertaining and unique tale about a woman finally coming clean about her past. While uneven at times, I did overall enjoy it.
This was definitely an original story. While it’s promoted to fans of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, it very much stands on its own. While yes, both books are in the LGBTQ+ genre, and also feature a look at Hollywood, they are very distinct stories. So don’t go into The Three Lives of Cate Kay expecting a huge, epic tale like Evelyn Hugo. It’s a shorter novel, written in a quick style.
The Three Lives of Cate Kay is written as a fictional memoir as a bestselling author is revealing the truth of her identity. I’m not a huge nonfiction, memoir fan so that type of writing isn’t always my favorite. But I thought it was an interesting approach. It also allowed multiple viewpoints without having to circle back around.
But it also meant that key scenes happened off page, and that was kind of a bummer. I found this one to be a slow start, engaging middle and a little disappointed at the ending. Again, with that memoir focus, I would have liked to have more developments happening, as opposed to a summary.
What’s the Story About
Cate Kay is a bestselling author. However, she doesn’t actually exist. Her identity has been kept a secret, until now.
As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.
The Journey
First of all, what an engaging synopsis! It instantly raises a ton of question, why doesn’t Cate Kay go by her real name? What was the past tragedy, and what is she running from? So of course, this is instantly appealing.
But it was a bit of a slow start as we got to know Cate (real name Annie) and Amanda’s childhood, friendship and love for acting. So what’s seems true with many memoirs are they spends too much time on one’s childhood. Without a doubt. It goes on and on, and sometimes it’s relevant and other times I feel they are just reliving their childhood, not much more.
It was kind of similar with this read. Of course, the relationship with Amanda is so significant. But it also featured some mundane components, and maybe a little too much focus on inside jokes. We understand they are very close. But let’s get to the parts that the synopsis highlighted! I was ready for the action to start happening. So I think the beginning could have tighten up.
A big storyline, however, is that Annie is also in love with Amanda, but isn’t sure if it’s reciprocated. Once it ventured into that area, I found the story more interesting.
And then a tragedy happens which causes Annie to go on the run. She eventually turns her past into fictional bestselling stories.
Annie even experiences a great romance, but she still isn’t being forthcoming about what really happened in her life. But her past finally has caught up with her, and it’s time to come clean.
Memoir Writing
We don’t just get the perspective of Annie, but also that of Amanda, Annie’s love interest Ryan, her ex Sidney and a journalist named Jake. Everyone, apart from Jake, helped shape the story. With Jake, I felt we either needed more from him, or he could have been skipped altogether. While he does serve a role, I don’t feel we really needed his perspective.
As I said, I liked getting all these viewpoints but keeping with the memoir format, we miss key developments. Without giving away spoilers, a lot does happen but it does so off page. I just don’t understand that. Even writing in the memoir format, I would have like to read those scenes.
But the memoir format makes the story fly by, so definitely a quick read, which is a nice change of pace for sure.
Verdict
Overall, a solid read. While a bit of a slow start, and I wish we had read more key scenes as they happened, I still found this to be such an original and absorbing story. So many strange decisions by these characters made it very fascinating.
I do feel everything kind of wrapped up nicely and very clean, and while I don’t know if that was exactly earned, it also made this a fairly easy read. And sometimes you need these type of stories to balance out the heavier ones.
For book clubs, check out my discussion questions here.
